Jewish Musician Receives "Palestinian"Citizenship.

By Reuters

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has tak= en Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could s= erve a model for peace between the two peoples.

"It is a great honor to be offered a passport," he said late

on Saturday af= ter a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah, the West Bank city where he has = been active for some years in promoting contact between young Arab and Isra= eli musicians. "I have also accepted it because I believe that the destinie= s of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked,= " Barenboim said.

"We are blessed =96 or cursed =96 to live with each other. And I prefer the= first. The fact that an Israeli citizen can be awarded a Palestinian passp= ort can be a sign that it is actually possible."

Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti, who helped organ= ize Saturday's concert, said the passport had been approved by the previous= government of which he was a member and which was replaced in June. The pa= ssport had actually been issued about six weeks ago, he added.

Argentine-born Barenboim, 65, is a controversial figure in his adoptive hom= eland, both for his promotion of German music and vocal opposition to Israe= l's occupation of the West Bank.

Asked about President George W. Bush's remarks last week on a visit to the = region that a peace could be signed this year, Barenboim warned of the dang= er of raising hopes too high. "It would be absolutely horrible if now, with= good intentions, expectations are raised which will not be able to be fulf= illed," Barenboim said. "Then we will sink into an even greater depression."

Though he dismissed any wish to play a political role, the former music dir= ector of the Chicago symphony Orchestra took a dig at Bush's strikingly for= ceful call in Jerusalem last week for Israel to end, in the president's own= words, "the occupation. Now even not very intelligent people are saying th= at the occupation has to be stopped," Barenboim said.

Despite strong objections from Israeli politicians to Israeli pianist Danie= l Barenboim's act of accepting a Palestinian passport, Interior Minister Me= ir Sheetrit has no plans to annul his Israeli citizenship.

Shas faction chairman Yakov Margi was quick to denounce Barenboim and call = for his status as an Israeli citizen to be annulled. "It's an embarrassment= to the State that a person like this has Israeli citizenship...I am sure t= hat in the eyes of Israeli citizens, he has lost the moral authority to be = Israeli."

Interior Minister Sheetrit told Ynet that "the matter is not even up for di= scussion." According to the law, the interior minister is conferred the rig= ht of abrogating the citizenship of an Israeli in the case of fraud or a br= each of trust. Emigration or receiving citizenship in an enemy state are co= nsidered breaches of trust and are liable to lead to the annulment of citiz= enship.

The Palestinian Authority, which is not officially considered an enemy stat= e, does not fall into the category of such a state. Thousands of Israeli re= sidents have both Israeli ID cards as well as Palestinian ones. Most are Is= raeli-Arabs that have close relatives who live in PA areas or Israeli-Arabs= that have come to live in Israel in the framework of family reunification = programs.

Most Palestinians that take on Israeli citizenship are required to renounce= their Palestinian citizenship but there are many exceptions. There are vir= tually no Jewish Israelis that have both Israeli and Palestinian citizenshi= p and this is why Barenboim's case is so unique.

Barenboim, who is based in Berlin, he is closely identified with German mus= ic and in 2001 conducted an opera by 19th-century composer Richard Wagner i= n Jerusalem despite anger in some quarters at a performance of a work by a = German accused of anti-Semitic views.

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